Sigean - 10 October 2019

10 October

Last night, shared a pizza for tea - quick and easy. Also made another batch of granola. This one is special - it has an organic bar of chocolate orange chopped into it as well. (Yes Herc, you’d love it really!). Think the weather has cooled sufficiently so the chocolate won’t stick to the sides of the container as it has done previously!

It’s a bit critical - we’re running out of data! We have 50GB to last a month - we have obviously been ‘reading’ too much rubbish online, scrolling through social media, downloading BBC1 programs, FaceTiming, doing research etc. Our bundle renews on 15 October - so no more Daily Mail or FaceTiming until after that! We need to keep our data for research and our blog!

We were parked all by ourselves again last night. Heard lots of cars leaving about 11pm - then the strangest thing! We were in bed, and heard a noise - and both looked up at the roof hatch in time to see a huge cat slink past! We looked around this morning, thinking he must have jumped on from a nearby tree - but no - that wouldn’t be possible - so he must have jumped onto the roof. Anyway, he certainly wasn’t dainty or light footed! Shame we couldn’t entice him in for a while! Had a good night’s sleep 💤

Me to drive today, just over an hour I think - fairly good roads, and nothing went wrong today - how it should be!

I’d said I fancied a baguette today, and as luck would have it, an artisan boulangerie appeared just off a roundabout with large parking spaces, so in I went! Spent the rest of the journey enjoying the wonderful aroma of fresh warm bread!

Was very tasty too, you can’t beat Lidl for a 35c baguette, but these artisan ones just have so much more flavour!

We’re parked up in a town called Sigean. Decided against Narbonne or Perpignan today, just wanted a lazy day.  Parking nothing special - large carpark - and now early evening there are about half a dozen motorhomes.

Read our books until 2pm, which is when the tourist information opened - rode up and picked up a map and leaflets.

15 mile bike ride today. Sun has been out, but very windy. Rode down to the port and coast.

There are two apects to Port-la-Nouvelle - the first is the ten km long beach facing on to the Mediterranean that attracts thousands of tourists each year, and the second is one of the largest industrial ports to be found in France. As to be expected - it wasn’t pretty!

It held Tintin’s attention for a while as there were a couple of ships discharging, and then he saw a couple of pilot boats - and explained about the Guernsey pilots had thought about using a ladder like on one of these for safety reasons.

Chez Pascal - Susie - is there something Pascal needs to tell?!

We rode back to the beach, took our bikes down to the waters edge - and went for a swim. Admittedly not for long - but think Tintin surprised himself by actually getting wet and swimming! In October! Yes, ok - it’s the Mediterranean!

Afterwards, sat in the sun and read our books for a while before cycling back. Again, not a particularly pleasant ride - lots of fast traffic passing quite close to us. Tried a cycle track, which was great to start with - tarmac - then descended into a rubble path going the wrong direction. Turned around, rode the wrong way to get back to the roundabout in order to go the right way again!

All in all, a much better day today!

We also have a treat planned for tomorrow - will let you know how it pans out!

More photos from today -